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Sophia Papaefthimiou » Welcome to Ms. Sophia's teacher page!

Welcome to Ms. Sophia's teacher page!

About Me

My name is Sophia Papaefthimiou (the students call me Ms. Sophia) and I'm so excited to start my 15th year of teaching!  I was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan and also spent three of my early years living in Athens, Greece, where my parents were born and raised.  I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Michigan.  After university, I worked at Oliver Wyman in risk management and financial services consulting.  After a few years, I decided to switch careers and embark on my teaching journey.  I went back to school and earned my mathematics teaching certificate from Northwestern University.  I have taught Algebra, Geometry, and DP Mathematics for the last fourteen years and was also a founding teacher at Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School. 

 

My husband and I have two daughters, Elektra (8 years) and Melina (5.5 years).  When I am not teaching Math, I stay busy by spending lots of time with my family.  I also love to cook, run, travel, and watch college football (Go Blue)! 

 

This school year I will be teaching DP Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation years 1 and 2 to juniors and seniors.  I can't wait to support my seniors, whom I taught last year (and some during their freshman year in Algebra), and to become acquainted with my juniors.

 

This course recognizes the increasing role that mathematics and technology play in a diverse range of fields in a data-rich world.  As such, it emphasizes the meaning of mathematics in context by focusing on topics that are often used in applications or in mathematical modeling.  To give this understanding a firm base, this course also includes topics that are traditionally part of a pre-university mathematics course such as calculus and statistics.  This course makes extensive use of technology to allow students to explore and construct mathematical models.  Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation will develop mathematical thinking, often in the context of a practical problem and using technology to justify conjectures.

The following units and topics will be covered this year:

Quarter 1:

Unit 1: Dividing up Space: Coordinate Geometry, Lines, and Voronoi Diagrams

Unit 2: Unit 2: Arithmetic and Geometric Sequences and Finance

·       Rounding and Significant Figures

·       Coordinate Geometry

·       Equations of Lines

·       Voronoi Diagrams

·       Arithmetic and Geometric Sequences and Series

·       Financial Applications

Quarter 2:

Unit 3: Modeling Relationships with Functions

·       Exponential Functions

·       Quadratic Functions

·       Cubic Functions

·       Polynomial Functions

·       Logarithmic Functions

 

 

 

 

Quarter 3:

Unit 4: Modeling Periodic Phenomena

·       Trigonometric Functions

·       Right Angled Trigonometry

·       Non-Right Angled Trigonometry

·       Periodic Functions

·       Sinusoidal Functions

Quarter 4:

Unit 5: Measuring and Representing Space: 2D & 3D Geometry

·       3D Geometry

·       Area

·       Volume

 
 

This course recognizes the increasing role that mathematics and technology play in a diverse range of fields in a data-rich world.  As such, it emphasizes the meaning of mathematics in context by focusing on topics that are often used in applications or in mathematical modeling.  To give this understanding a firm base, this course also includes topics that are traditionally part of a pre-university mathematics course such as calculus and statistics.  This course makes extensive use of technology to allow students to explore and construct mathematical models.  Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation will develop mathematical thinking, often in the context of a practical problem and using technology to justify conjectures.

The following units and topics will be covered this year:

Quarter 1:

Unit 1: Unit 1: Representing and Describing Data: Descriptive Statistics 

Unit 2: Modelling Relationships: Linear Correlation of Bivariate Data 

·       Data sources

·       Measures of central tendency

·       Measures of dispersion

·       Linear correlation of bivariate data

·       Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient, r

·       Regression line

Quarter 2:

Unit 3: Quantifying Uncertainty: Probability, Binomial, and Normal Distributions

·       Probability

·       Venn diagrams

·       Binomial distributions

·       Normal distributions

 

 

 

 

Quarter 3:

Unit 4: Testing for Validity: Spearman's Hypothesis Testing and Chi-Squared Test for Independence

Internal Assessment

·       Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

·       Chi-squared test

·       t-test

 

Quarter 4:

Unit 5: Analyzing Rates of Changes: Differential Calculus

Unit 6: Approximating Irregularly Spaces: Integration

·       Limits

·       Derivatives

·       Integrals

·       Optimisation
 
I'll also help you brush up on your skills as you prepare for the rescheduled SAT in addition to supporting you through all of the IB assessments and the Internal Assessment for this course. 
I am available for office hours after school after 8th period. Please reach out to me via email at [email protected] to schedule office hours.